


18 Years Ago

by FlowerFly



Series: From Friends To Lovers [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Gen, Peter Parker is Pepper Potts' Son, minor slut shaming maybe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2019-11-04 11:21:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17897489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlowerFly/pseuds/FlowerFly
Summary: Tony is not the only one who has fucked around while being young.Peter finds his biological family.





	1. Peter

**Author's Note:**

> I found an MCU family trope there weren't any fics yet, so I had to give it a try.

"So what do you want for your birthday party?" Darcy asked Peter when they were working together in Tony's lab. It was three weeks before the big day. 

"Which party?" He had planned just to go out with his old friends. They hadn't seen each other for a long time. 

"The surprise party Tony wants to throw you, of course!"

It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the gesture, but... "Does he need an excuse to throw a party?" 

"C'mon, _your dad_ just wants to make up all the years he didn't know you existed." 

"Ha, ha." Peter regretted nothing as much as telling Darcy that he was adopted! That just fueled Darcy's claim about him being Tony's bastard child. "Oh, I let _my stepmother_ decide." And of course, that just encouraged her more too.

"Good boy knows to respect his parents", his 9 years older than him co-worker grinned. "I try to get him limiting the guest list under 200." 

Tony had taken him under his wing the way that rose some questions. He wasn't any kind of proper father figure, but he was definitely more than just a boss. A mentor. And a close friend. And Darcy teased them about it relentlessly. Maybe Mr. Stark had seen his younger self in him and wanted to give all the guidance he would have loved to have too. Peter didn't really know. Sometimes he wondered the parent thing himself, too. It was true that he was capable to follow his thoughts easier than it should have been possible and that maths and physics had always been easy for him. But he didn't look like him and they had really different personalities. Peter loved being alone or in a small company and hated the big crowds Tony needed time to time. 

"That can come from your mother's side", Darcy had explained when they had talked about it. 

"Do you want this to be tested?" Tony had asked. Like what the hell, now _he_ had started to believe that crap, too?!

"No, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard from you two. I mean why would a chick who bears _Tony Stark's_ child would just give him to adoption instead of trying to get all the cash out of it?"

"Maybe she didn't know whose it was…." Darcy helped. 

That was quite insulting for his biological mother! "You say my mother was such a slut she didn't know who was banging her? Thanks a lot!"

"C'mon Peter, I didn't mean it like that. It can happen to anyone!"

"My _beloved_ wife, I want to hear all of your experiences of the matter but somewhere when there aren't underages around", Tony cut in. "So you're sure about no paternity test?"

"I'm absolutely sure. Can we just drop the subject, like for forever?"

"I'm not making any promises…" his _stepmother_ had said and kept her word. 

It wasn't that Peter didn't want to know. He just didn't want to be a Stark. Not after what he had seen happening to Darcy "I married Ironman" Stark, who couldn't leave the tower without at least two bodyguards. And all that shit she got in social media! No thank you, even if people would be kinder for a person of his gender. 

The closer his birthday came, the more he thought of his biological parents. He knew that he was adopted with such terms that when he was 18, he could know their names if he wanted to. And he was going to ask as soon as he could. Just out of curiosity. 

But first, he had to turn 18 and suffer through Tony's extravagant party.

The party wasn't that bad. Most of the guests were Tony's acquaintances but he had all his few old and many new friends there too. It was weird to be in the cool kids' gang now. He worked for SI and knew Tony Stark and that was social currency among his new student friends.

He got all kinds of presents. Ned gave him a funny t-shirt, Tony and Darcy a watch hand-made by Tony. 

"Of course it has an AI installed." 

"Tony was going to give you a plushy animal but I told him not to."

Pepper Potts gave him an envelope filled with pictures of classy houses and apartments. "I own those places and you are welcome here as my guest whether or not I'm there myself. So when you feel like getting out of the lab, just leave a note for my secretary, she will find flights for you and your friends - paid by me of course." 

"Wow, that's very generous of you, _Boss Lady_." He didn't know what to say. Sometimes Pepper was kinder to him than he could understand. "Thank you."

"Well, I think you need to get out of the lab more. Some of my friends use the places too, but you already know Wanda and Natasha, so don't hesitate to use the offer." 

Michelle gave him a gift just by showing up. He missed her but hadn't wanted to work less and spend more time with her which had come between them. How stupid of him! But then he had been so excited about his new job. He had wished they could stay friends after the break-up. She didn't have a new boyfriend. Maybe they could even try again? He spent most of the night planning a world tour with her. 

The day after the party he drove to the adoption agency. He asked his papers and sat down when he read the lines. His father was marked as "unknown", of which he wasn't really surprised. But when he read his biological mother's name he almost fell down from the chair.


	2. Pepper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some questions get answered, others don't.

Eighteen and a half years ago university student Virginia Potts found out she was pregnant.

She had always known she didn't want to have children. But when the doctor confirmed her pregnancy test result, she knew that she couldn't have an abortion. She just couldn't. At a rational level, she was very much pro-choice, but being in the situation she felt her survival instinct kicking in. She wanted to protect the life inside her! She wanted to give him the best life possible. Which meant, at least, giving him a family that truly wanted and loved him. 

It didn't feel like a decision. It felt like the only logical way of doing things. 

She stopped going out. She got easily tired and gained weight. She didn't really mean to try to keep it a secret but she didn't have close friends or anyone else to talk to anymore. After all, all of that had started when she had lost her boyfriend, the only person she used to confide in. She didn't talk to her family back then. 

She wore large unfitting clothes. Her classmates thought she was depressed. Maybe she was. She didn't want to think about what was going on in her life. She focused her energy on studying and kept getting excellent grades. 

The boy was going to be born at the beginning of September. She gave a premature birth at the end of July. 

Later, she didn't remember anything about the fall. At Christmas, she wondered where her year had gone. 

She coped with intellectual effort, graduated with the best grades of her class, got a job at Stark Industries… and with all her new challenges, she didn't have time to dwell on her past. 

She had almost forgotten the kid she gave a better life. Until Tony rescued the new mutant _spider kid_ from the street into his trainee and Pepper saw a familiar birth date in the contract. 

So when 18-year-old Peter met her in Tony's lab and inquired shyly "Can I ask you about something?" she lead him into her office. 

"Is this true? Is this really you?" Peter asked and showed her a copy of a familiar paper. 

"Yes." 

"Wow. Just wow." Peter didn't know what to say for a moment. Soon he remembered The Big Question: "Who is my father?"

"I don't know."

"What?" Peter was surprised a second time in five minutes. "How is that possible?"

"I think you were sired the night when I found my boyfriend cheating me with another woman in a party. I broke up with him immediately and then I drank a bit more and found someone to bang for revenge." Peter just stared at her so she felt she needed to continue. "I and my boyfriend had been having hard times together for some months and no sex, so I figured you couldn't be his. Your father most likely had dark hair. I'm sorry I can't tell you more details." 

Peter let the information to sink in. His biological mother was one of the richest and the most intelligent women on the planet, his father was some dude she hadn't cared to find out. 

Pepper reached his hands and continued: "I never wanted to abandon you. When I found out about you I only wanted the best for you and that was with a family who was ready for a baby when I wasn't."

Peter smiled. He understood. A purely logical solution.

"Well, now I don't have to wonder from where I have inherited my intelligence", he grinned. But he had to ask anyway: "But Tony wasn't in that party, was he?"

Pepper rolled her eyes. "I think I would have remembered him." 

"I think you would. See you around, _mom_ ", Peter said and rose up. The case was closed. He wanted to get back to work. 

After he had left, Pepper checked out Tony's old calendar and other information from that time eighteen and a half years ago. It was, indeed possible that Tony had been at the party.

She had to find out who Peter's father was.


	3. Peter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Darcy talk. A teaser chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised I wouldn't continue since I hadn't decided who his father was. But then it just hit me who he had to be.

Peter talked to Darcy since he didn't have anybody else to talk to. They were alone in Tony's lab, Mr. Bossman was probably taking a nap somewhere and Darcy was on a break with an enormous cup of coffee. Peter massaged his fingers. He didn't know where to start. 

"I found out about my biological parents."

"Wow. Who they are?"

That was exactly the question he wanted to avoid. 

"Well, it's complicated..." 

The worst thing about Darcy was that she could really _look_ at you and make you tell the truth and whole truth and nothing but the truth or do whatever else she wanted. She could do that even to Tony! She could be scarier than Pepper. On the other hand, for Peter, Pepper wasn't scary at all. 

Luckily Darcy didn't shoot him with _that_ look, she just raised her eyebrow for curiosity. 

"Why?" 

"We... decided to keep it just for us."

"Well, Tony isn't one of them, or I would know. Why the secrecy? Are they celebrities?"

"No, not really, or maybe in a way. They are doing business, quite successively, and known in their fields. It would be news." Darcy looked like she got it, so he continued. "My mom is married and my father is not."

"They are not together?"

"No." 

He didn't know how to continue.

"What do you think of them?"

Peter exhaled.

"I don't know what I think of them! I haven't even met both of them! I met my mother and she found the guy who made her pregnant and just I've talked on the phone with him." Peter buried his face on his hands. "Now he wants to meet."

"And?"

"I don't know if it's a good idea."

"Why not?"

"He's been in jail for attacking my biological mother and her partner and a group of other people." Peter thanked himself he could say it without revealing who he was referring to. "She says she's sorry he is my father and I shouldn't trust him. So maybe I should just forget I was adopted."

"But you want to meet him." 

"Yes!" 

"Do you think he could be violent towards you? Does she think so?"

"I don't know. Maybe?"

"But you want to meet him anyway?"

He wasn't a coward. He could have been an Avenger. 

"Yes." 

"Then you'll meet him. You don't always have to walk the safe path." That's why he loved Darcy like a big sister or a fairy stepmother! "But take care of you, have some people around you who can help if needed. I can lend you people from my security team."

Darcy's security team was like the best in the world! But he didn't want them to tell her _or Tony!_ who the man in question was.

"Thank you, but I'm good. I think I can get help from my mother." 

He hugged her because she was Darcy and walked to the private corner to call his mother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you guess who his father is before I update the tags?


End file.
